Like jmbach said, I'd leave the TiVo drive away from the PC for now and hook up the EURS and run

wdparm -N /dev/sdc

just to see what it reports.

But not just yet.

That BIOS setting that's disabled I'd leave disabled, but you should check and see if the current version of the BIOS on that board is the latest for that board.

I googlestumbled across some GB HPA talk that said some boards had BIOS'es that had the disable option (mine don't, they're older), but there's a bug in the BIOS that prevents disabling from actually disabling.

Although if it weren't disabled I would have expected it to have HPA'ed the SSD

Anyway, check your BIOS version, check GB's website to see if there's a newer version, and google the board number and BIOS number to see if anybody mentions anything about the HPA problem.

You'll probably have to try several different combinations of the various pertinent search terms.

Although if it weren't disabled I would have expected it to have HPA'ed the SSD

It might be that his ssd is not in a true sata port. My laptop has it in a msata port. Some desktop motherboards also have msata ports for ssd cards. It might have to be in an actual sata port for it HPA'ed it. Perhaps it is the first normal sata drive it comes to in order to place and HPA on a drive.

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__________________
"Delay is preferable to error" - Thomas Jefferson
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" - Sir Isaac Newton

Congressman...I mean Unitron...Your method is what TIVO told me to do with my THD's as well. They say that the THD is supposed to be OK if you just pull the plug, but to be sure they said to do a restart as you said.

About the only time I pull the plug is when it is non-responsive. Makes it difficult to restart it before hand. I do use that method if I am planning to take a TiVo out of service for a while, like to move, upgrade, or repair it.

As far as putting it in standby is concerned, that is useless for this purpose even if it is responsive. It does not idle the drive at all.

edit: definitely not good...as soon as the recording started it lost signal...froze then grey screen...

something's definitely wrong...will try the original drive tomorrow to see what happens...i'm assuming if its the tivo i've screwed the warranty...i've also purchased lifetime...is it possible to return this to best buy and contact tivo to have lifetime moved or am i screwed and stuck with a bad box? (that is if its the box and not the drive...)

Like jmbach said, I'd leave the TiVo drive away from the PC for now and hook up the EURS and run

wdparm -N /dev/sdc

just to see what it reports.

But not just yet.

That BIOS setting that's disabled I'd leave disabled, but you should check and see if the current version of the BIOS on that board is the latest for that board.

I googlestumbled across some GB HPA talk that said some boards had BIOS'es that had the disable option (mine don't, they're older), but there's a bug in the BIOS that prevents disabling from actually disabling.

Although if it weren't disabled I would have expected it to have HPA'ed the SSD

Anyway, check your BIOS version, check GB's website to see if there's a newer version, and google the board number and BIOS number to see if anybody mentions anything about the HPA problem.

You'll probably have to try several different combinations of the various pertinent search terms.

Unitron & jmbach,

Per your advice, I hooked up the WD20EURS (the target drive for my TP4 upgrade) to SATA port 2 and fired up the JMFS CD. It was assigned to /dev/sdc, and running hdparm against it reported the exact same thing as the WD20EARS (ie. "max sectors: 18446744073321613488/3907029168(1844674407332161613488?), HPA setting seems invalid").

I verified that my BIOS was up-to-date, and then after saying a few prayers, I bit the bullet and went ahead and hooked up the TP4 drive to SATA port 3 and booted the JMFS CD again.

And the upshot is... I got my panties in a bunch over nothing.

The Tivo drive (a WD5000AVDS, BTW) was assigned to /dev/sdd as expected. It took just under three hours to copy, and then after expanding and supersizing the WD20EURS, I put it into the TP4 and fired it up. It booted up without issue, and it now shows I have 318 HD hours available! I played around with it a bit and manually recorded a show, and everything seems to be operating normally.

I never actually tried running hdparm on the original TP4 drive, so I'm not sure what it would have reported. To be honest, I wanted to do the minimum with the drive while it was hooked up to that Gigabyte motherboard, so the only things I did were the copy, expand, and supersize, and then I immediately powered down and pulled the drive back out. I've now stored it away for safekeeping.

Anyway, like I said, it seems I was overly paranoid and worried about nothing. Other than the weirdness with the hdparm output, the upgrade went smoothly and painlessly. Thanks very much for all your help!

original drive back in...everything seems to be ok so far...2 recordings just started and everything seems to be ok...

guess i'll be heading out to microcenter and seeing if they'll let me exchange (if this thing keeps going)

edit: looks like i spoke to soon...definitely the tivo...

so what are my options here?

How long ago did you buy from Best Buy? I would take it back to them. They will probably exchange it and transfer the lifetime service to the new box. If they give you trouble, call Tivo. It is under warranty. Drive swap shouldn't affect that as long as the original drive is back in.

How long ago did you buy from Best Buy? I would take it back to them. They will probably exchange it and transfer the lifetime service to the new box. If they give you trouble, call Tivo. It is under warranty. Drive swap shouldn't affect that as long as the original drive is back in.

exchanged at best buy...using new box now...will wait a few weeks before trying the 2tb upgrade again...

I think that's what it said but all it did was install 7zip. Then I tried it again and got Zoom downloader. Anyway, I found a site where I could download the iso file directly.

Now I've put the new drive in my computer and booted SLAX, but it's not seeing the new drive??

I booted up UBCD and did a diskinfo and it appears he found it.... I'm not actually sure how to get to the WD diagnostics. HDD, I suspect, but then. I would hate to do something wrong and wipe out my windows drive, which is sitting in the other bay.

Ok, I found the diagnostics for the WD drives. I ran the "quick test" and it failed, saying it couldn't find "test sectors"?

"missing test tracks"
error/status code: 0229

Does this mean my drive is junk?

On the UBCD, under hard drive, under diagnostics, there are two WD programs, be sure to choose the one for newer, larger, drives.

Also, you can go down in the main menu to where it says Parted Magic and launch that and it'll put you into a "Windows"-ish looking graphical interface.

There will be an icon on the left about mid-page or higher that says something about disk health, double click on that to launch it, see what it says about your drives and then (IIRC) right click on the particular drive and choose details.

It'll also offer a short, long, and "was this drive damaged in transit" test.

(actually those are tests built into the drive's SMART firmware, it just lets you get at them)

On the UBCD, under hard drive, under diagnostics, there are two WD programs, be sure to choose the one for newer, larger, drives.

Also, you can go down in the main menu to where it says Parted Magic and launch that and it'll put you into a "Windows"-ish looking graphical interface.

There will be an icon on the left about mid-page or higher that says something about disk health, double click on that to launch it, see what it says about your drives and then (IIRC) right click on the particular drive and choose details.

It'll also offer a short, long, and "was this drive damaged in transit" test.

(actually those are tests built into the drive's SMART firmware, it just lets you get at them)

I got the interface you mentioned and clicked on "disk health". It says basic health check passed. A box with SMART enabled is checked. One with auto offline data collection is not checked. What now? Oh, and I did use the diagnostic for the larger drives.

I noticed in the menu some "tests" and I'm running one of them now. These are routines that evidently come with the drive. Is it possible that the version of Diagnostic on the UBCD can't handle advanced format drives?

I got the interface you mentioned and clicked on "disk health". It says basic health check passed. A box with SMART enabled is checked. One with auto offline data collection is not checked. What now? Oh, and I did use the diagnostic for the larger drives.

I noticed in the menu some "tests" and I'm running one of them now. These are routines that evidently come with the drive. Is it possible that the version of Diagnostic on the UBCD can't handle advanced format drives?

I want to thank everyone here for helping me through this process. One thing I might mention is that after Expanding, you get a question, none of whose choices is "Supersize". I forget how it's stated, but you have to go back to the original menu to find the Supersize option.

Sorry if this has been answered - I admittedly didn't read ALL Of the 69 pages in this thread, but I read a good portion of it, and did some searches with no results.... so..

I've got a 2-tuner Premier that I upgraded to 1tb when I first got it several years ago. I have the original disk (hasn't ever even booted in the Tivo) so I do have a "backup plan", but now I've got probably 800g of shows saved, plus all the season passes and configs, and I'm seeing evidence that the hard drive might be going bad. Occasional freeze of video that eventually end up in the Tivo rebooting, etc.. so I'm thinking it's time to be a little bit proactive.

I'm assuming that I could pop the 1tb drive out, and use either the jmfs boot disk, or probably even just a basic dd command to clone this drive to another 1tb drive, but I'm wondering if the jmfs disk would let me expand again, say onto a 2tb (or larger?) disk?

Is there a limit to how many times you can expand with the jmfs?

I guess another related question would be whether there'd be a performance disadvantage to going to a larger disk - I remember on my old series 1 Tivo which started with a 13g disk that I upgraded to 500g or so, and at least my perception was that the GUI was less responsive with the big disk

Thanks in advance, and again, sorry if it's been answered elsewhere, but if I couldn't find it, perhaps this will help someone else find it later too??